As we slumbered in our beds over our Christmas break, as with the famous story of the Chistmas Carol, we were visited by three wise ghosts. The ghost of Empire Avenue Future revealed to us what we would be doing over this next year, and it was filled with plump Turkeys, Tofurkeys and many squirrels. We’ll reveal some of that when we can. We don’t want to let the cat out of the bag before we’re ready!

The ghost of Empire Avenue Present was telling us about allowing you to promote your profile and earn Eaves through inviting people. You might have noticed that in the last few days the same “Tweet” and “Like” links that were available only on your public profiles are now available within the site. In addition, we have rolled out a special, unique invite link that is keyed to you and only you. If you send that link out in whatever fashion you choose, any person clicking on that link and joining will be credited to you.

Such a credit, by the way, can be quite lucrative. Each successful sign-in who connects a social network (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or YouTube) will net you *and* the person who signed up an extra 2,000 eaves. Not too shabby! More details can be found on the Invite Friends page.

The ghost of Empire Avenue Past was less comforting. That ghost encouraged us to look at our game rules and make some changes. We’re going to remove the 50 shares cap on buying new users based on “User Experience Levels.” There were many reasons we put that in at the end of August (Erindale). However, looking at metrics and all the other simplifications in our rules, we don’t feel that this particular rule did what we wanted and, instead, increased the complexity of the site for no great reason. From now on, it’s back to any user being allowed to buy 200 in anyone (though, as before, users who can buy 250+ shares in anyone will still have to wait before they can claim those extra shares in those that just sign up).

So what are the rules? If you’ve been on the site for a while, they should be pretty memorable:

– You can buy 200 shares in any Empire Avenue profile including “Social Media” accounts like Twitter accounts who have not yet been claimed on Empire Avenue. In turn new users can now buy 200 shares in anyone as well. More fun, more connections and more conversations for everybody!

– You can buy more than 200 shares in anyone if you have an upgrade, except you cannot buy more than 200 in users who have been on the site less than 1 week (this has always been the case).

This change is effective as of this blog post. As before, we will monitor for cheating and will take appropriate action.